[elrepo] Can we rename kernel-ml to something more correct?

[Akemi Yagi]

On Wed, Sep 5, 2018 at 2:47 PM Dave Chiluk via elrepo
<elrepo at lists.elrepo.org> wrote:

> On Thu, Aug 30, 2018 at 2:06 PM Dave Chiluk <dchiluk at indeed.com> wrote:
>>
>> If I'm not mistaken in kernel-ml, ml stands for mainline.  This is actually quite a misnomer as kernel.org uses mainline to refer to Linus' development tree.  In actuality kernel-ml is instead built off of the stable tree.  I've seen a number of people get confused by this nuance.
>>
>> I know it would suck to do, but it really feels like it should be named something like kernel-stable *(because of kernel.org conventions), or possibly kernel-st (for short-term).  I'm not really sure what the correct name should be, but I'm certain it should not be kernel-ml.
>>
>> We could even create a transitional kernel-ml package that depends on the newly named rpm to provide a no-brainer upgrade path.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Dave.
>
> I had to explain this again today.  @alan, or @akemi, thoughts?
>
> Thanks,
> Dave.

As stated in our wiki page, kernel-ml is from the "mainline stable"
branch, i.e. the mature fruit from the immediate past -rcXs from
Linus' tree.

We do not think "-stable" is a good name even if it were more
technically correct from the kernel.org POV. From a RHEL POV it's more
like the distro kernel is the 'stable' kernel, and kernel-ml is the
'cutting edge' alternative.

More importantly, it's been 5 years since we first released kernel-ml
to the public. It's now in wide use and well recognized as
"kernel-ml". It would be counterproductive to rename it.

Akemi